Is there any point in pursuing this?

Zablorg · Post by **Zablorg** » 2008-01-17 04:09am

I'm debating an anti-abortionist at the moment, and he raises some pretty irrelevant points that I can refute with ease, but the one that he keeps falling back on is that the embryo is a baby. No matter how many times I try to put various points across for suggesting why this is not the case, he simply keeps thumping away at it. I will soon query him about whether sperm are babies too.

Is there any point in attempting to continue this debate or is it a lost cause?

Androsphinx · Post by **Androsphinx** » 2008-01-17 06:30am

No. The identification of life as "beginning" at a certain point is not generally one of the things which can usually be changed through rational argument. You might try to get him to accept your position as valid for you on the basis that he's making a subjective moral judgement and you can make a different one - which is really the issue, no?

Post by **Surlethe** » 2008-01-17 07:25am

If you let him get away with defining the fertilized ovum as a baby and you accept the rights-based arguments (instead of substituting a utilitarian argument), then you're essentially conceding the debate. If he simply states that a fertilized egg is a baby, with no justification, hammer him with the good old, "Why? Because you said so?"

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2008-01-17 02:19pm

Argumentum ad nauseum is an actual logical fallacy.

Zablorg · Post by **Zablorg** » 2008-01-18 12:13am

well, fuck him. He just now assumed that because I don't mind abortion, I must be a Planned Parenthood groupie and that it is part of my ideology to support the killing of brain functional comatose people (even when I said I didn't support it).

It looks like things are wrapping up though.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2008-01-18 01:45pm

Zablorg wrote:well, fuck him. He just now assumed that because I don't mind abortion, I must be a Planned Parenthood groupie and that it is part of my ideology to support the killing of brain functional comatose people (even when I said I didn't support it).

Thats actually quite typical. To the fundy, there are only two sides. Their (meaning God's) side and the devil's side. If you accept one thing they disagree with, you accept everything they don't like (hasty generalization fallacy BTW, not that fundies have ever been known for logical thinking). If you're not with them, you're with the terrorists.

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2008-01-18 05:33pm

Zablorg wrote:well, fuck him. He just now assumed that because I don't mind abortion, I must be a Planned Parenthood groupie and that it is part of my ideology to support the killing of brain functional comatose people (even when I said I didn't support it).

It looks like things are wrapping up though.

There is a way around his argument that a fetus is a baby. And you can do it while still using a rights based argument if you wish.

Simply, the right of the fetus to exist does not override the mother's right to control her body. To say otherwise is to agree to slavery.

Use the following analogy.

"You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital now tells you, ‘Look, we're sorry the Society of Music Lovers did this to you—we would never have permitted it if we had known. But still, they did it, and the violinist now is plugged into you. To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, it's only for nine months. By then he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you’.

"Is it morally incumbent on you to accede to this situation? No doubt it would be very nice of you if you did, a great kindness. But do you have to accede to it? What if it were not nine months, but nine years? Or longer still? What if the director of the hospital says: ‘Tough luck, I agree, but you've now got to stay in bed, with the violinist plugged into you, for the rest of your life. Because remember this. All persons have a right to life, and violinists are persons. Granted you have a right to decide what happens in and to your body, but a person's right to life outweighs your right to decide what happens in and to your body. So you cannot ever be unplugged from him.’ "I imagine you would regard this as outrageous . . ."2

http://jme.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/26/6/466

There are a few possible objections to this. Such as that it only really applies in cases of rape. However, just because a person consents to sex, does not mean that they give consent to pregnancy. This in ethics is called the doctrine of double effect. One can intend one consequence, and act to bring about that consequence ethically, but secondary consequences can still come about which the actor did not explicitly intend and thus is not morally (but may be causally) responsible for.

Zablorg · Post by **Zablorg** » 2008-01-18 05:58pm

Motherfucker just won't shut the fuck up about the comatose. I don't get to choose who lives and who dies, he says. Well fuck that. He's also still assuming that abortion and PP are exclusive. Frankly, I'm insulted by these assumptions, and since we are now going around in the same circles, I'm pulling out.